TEMPEH SCRAMBLE: as the tempeh gets older, stronger flavors develop, and I don't always enjoy them. I have found that marinating the tempeh in a combination of lemon juice and soy sauce is enough balance to counteract the aged tempeh flavor. Aged tempeh may be a delicacy in Indonesia, but I'm a Norwegian living in Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure that some of my "native" delicacies might not find favor with the Indonesians. It's a fair trade, don't you think?
Anyway, this is what this particular scramble consists of:
Tempeh marinated in soy sauce and lemon juice.
A whole yellow onion
A generous amount of olive oil
About a cup and a half of previously steamed mustard and beet greens
The night before (or a couple of days before, if you like) slice tempeh into strips and marinate it with a soy sauce and lemon juice mixture. Cover and place in the refrigerator. When you're ready to eat, pour a generous amount of olive oil into your wok and let it start to heat while you chop up the onion. Put the onion into the oil and give it a good stir. Cut or break the tempeh up into small pieces, then toss it in with the onions and cook to your preferred level of doneness; I like the onions to be translucent and the tempeh slightly browned. Add the mixed greens and stir long enough to incorporate the green throughout the rest of the dish and heat the greens through.
Like pretty much everything else I cook, tempeh scramble is really more of a process than a recipe. The only thing sure is the tempeh. Given that I like my tempeh scramble with lots of greens in it you can usually assume that there will be some, but you can't always be sure. Sometimes I like to make it with carrot and broccoli and hot peppers. Sometimes I like just Swiss chard and almonds, and seasoning the tempeh/nut/Swiss chard mixture with Worchestershire sauce and nutritional yeast and garlic. Today's scramble didn't need any seasoning; the combination of mustard greens and marinated tempeh was fabulous on its own.
And yes, I did make that strawberry jam! I used the low sugar recipe available in the .pdf from the Wisconsin extension, here.
